Dec 9
2025
Local police who cooperate with ICE
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The Cheektowaga Police Department heads the list of a half-dozen local law enforcement agencies that are cooperating with federal agencies to detain and deport migrants.
So far this year, police in the Buffalo suburb have turned over at least 21 people to federal immigration agents after detaining them for low-level offenses like shoplifting.
Sheriff offices in Erie and Niagara counties are also working with U.S. Border Patrol and ICE. So are police in Lewiston, North Tonawanda and Amherst, though to a lesser extent.
Buffalo police do not appear to collaborate with immigration authorities. Mayor-elect Sean Ryan said it’s not the job of city cops to enforce federal law.
An investigation by Investigative Post found at least 31 migrant arrests this year that involved cooperation between local police and federal authorities — tw0-thirds the result of Cheektowaga police actions.
That total is an undercount. For example, Investigative Post identified three cases where the Erie County Sheriff’s Office handed over a migrant to Border Patrol, but a spokesperson said the real number is closer to a dozen. The spokesperson, Christopher Horvatits, declined to provide additional details and refused an interview request.
The cooperation follows a pattern: Police stop or detain a migrant for a low-level offense like a traffic violation or shoplifting. Police, saying they need a translator or to verify the person’s identity, call Border Patrol agents.
“That’s the excuse that they use,” said attorney Matthew Borowski, who’s represented migrants in federal proceedings who were first detained by local police. “And Border Patrol, of course, while they’re there translating, look into [their] immigration status and detain them.”
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomThe federal agents then take custody of the migrant, often sending them to the ICE detention center in Batavia.
Local law enforcement agencies working with federal authorities defend their cooperation on the grounds they’re acting to promote public safety.
“I think my goal is to keep the community safe,” said Niagara County Sheriff Michael Filicetti, who detains migrant women on behalf of ICE, and whose deputies occasionally turn migrants over to Border Patrol. “Once federal immigration is involved, that is their determination on how they’re going to handle things.”
Cooperation between local law enforcement and immigration authorities is imperfect, however, as in the case of Enrique Buitrago-Rojas and his son.
Asylum seekers detained by ICE
On June 24, Buitrago-Rojas and his son, 16-year-old Jeimer, were shopping at the Walden Galleria when an employee accused them of stealing $309 worth of clothing. Normally, such a charge results in the police issuing a person a ticket to appear before a town judge. In Buitrago-Rojas’ case it resulted in a call to Border Patrol.
“They called the police, and the police called immigration right away,” Buitrago-Rojas told Investigative Post.
Buitrago-Rojas, who had been visiting from New York City, said he and his son were detained by ICE for more than a month — first in Batavia and then in Laredo, Texas. Initially, he said, ICE agents refused to let him call his wife.
He and his son were released once federal authorities realized he had a future immigration court date scheduled. They’ve since returned home but Buitrago-Rojas now wears an ankle monitor.
“My son is suffering psychological damages. He doesn’t leave the house. He’s living in fear,” he said.
“In my case, it was racism. They didn’t give me any opportunity to speak with them or explain anything. No one spoke Spanish. The truth is, it’s very depressing how they treated us like criminals when we aren’t.”
Buitrago-Rojas said he still hasn’t gotten back the car he drove to the mall that day.
In an interview, Captain Jeffrey Schmidt, spokesperson for Cheektowaga police, defended officers’ choice to call Border Patrol and said the department doesn’t bear responsibility for what happens to a person after their involvement ends.
“I have no idea what happens to anyone once they are taken into custody by the federal government,” he said. “We have no influence over it.”
Experts raise concerns about cooperation
President Donald Trump’s administration has said it aims to arrest 3,000 immigrants per day, though so far it has averaged about a third of that number. In the eight counties of Western New York, 813 migrants were arrested by ICE between January and mid-October, an average of three per day. Eighty-three percent, data shows, are listed as “immigration violators” but have no other criminal history. Those figures do not include arrests by Border Patrol agents.
The findings of this investigation are based on a review of police reports, court records and other documents obtained by Investigative Post, as well as interviews with more than a dozen people.
In 10 cases Investigative Post reviewed, a migrant was criminally charged for illegally reentering the country, an offense that often results in deportation. In other cases, police called Border Patrol on migrants who were legally present asylum seekers. At least one American citizen was caught in the dragnet.
Paul Linden-Retek, a law professor at the University at Buffalo and co-author of an upcoming report on police-immigration collaboration, said local police enforcing immigration law could result in due process or Constitutional violations.
“It opens up the door to all sorts of arbitrary arrests and detentions that we would normally never tolerate when it comes to normal policing and law enforcement,” he said.
“The judgments that police officers make, especially when it comes to immigration status, invariably, I think, run up against the problem of racial profiling.”
Felicia Arriaga, a Baruch College professor who studies collaborations between police and federal agencies, said that such cooperation shouldn’t occur.
“I ultimately don’t think that these two systems should be intertangling with each other,” said Arriaga, who authored a 2023 book on the subject. “On the criminal justice side of things … we already know that, disproportionately, Black and Brown people are targeted by those agencies.”
Local politicians have a mixed view on the matter. Cheektowaga Supervisor Brian Nowak, for example, said he did not favor a “blanket prohibition” banning police from working with immigration enforcement agencies because “we need to have that as a tool in the toolbox.”
However, Nowak said, he worries that police aiding in the Trump administration’s crackdown could backfire on the town.
“I don’t want to see the town be the local arm of a federal police force,” he said. “It’s not what we signed up for.”
Representatives for law enforcement agencies told Investigative Post their departments are not behaving any differently now than under prior administrations.
“From our perspective, our working relationship with Border Patrol is not any different now compared to prior to President Trump taking office,” said Horvatits, spokesperson for the Erie County Sheriff’.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection — the parent agency of Border Patrol — welcomes the assistance from local law enforcement. In a statement, a spokesperson said that through a “whole of government approach” the agency “routinely coordinates and collaborates with federal, state, county, and local law enforcement agencies” to “keep border communities safe.”
Cheektowaga police most cooperative
In records obtained via the Freedom of Information Law, Investigative Post identified 21 people Cheektowaga police turned over to federal agents between January and November of this year. Among them was an American citizen.
On a Tuesday in June, while shopping at the Walden Avenue Walmart with his girlfriend, Agusto Diaz handed his child a toy to play with. The couple later left the store, forgetting to pay for the toy, he said. A Cheektowaga police officer on the scene detained the couple, accusing them of shoplifting.
In an interview, Diaz — who has curly hair, tattoos and speaks with an accent — told Investigative Post an officer began asking him questions about his immigration status.
“She kept telling me … ‘Are you a citizen? Are you a citizen?’” he said. “And I was like, ‘Miss, what are you even talking about? I’m with my girl right now and you’re talking about citizenship?’”
Cheektowaga police headquarters. Photo by Adam Smith-Perez.
Diaz returned the toy, but Cheektowaga police took him to their headquarters and charged him with lying to officers. Then they called Border Patrol to investigate his citizenship status. He was released, he said, after agents confirmed he’d been born in the Bronx.
Diaz now believes he was racially profiled — a charge a Cheektowaga police spokesperson denied.
In September, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion that federal agents were permitted to conduct “brief investigatory stops” to inquire about someone’s immigration status based on their appearance. The order does not apply to local law enforcement.
“I’m American,” Diaz said. “I can show you my birth certificate, my social security, everything. The girl was being kinda racist.”
Schmidt, Cheektowaga police spokesperson, said in an interview that his officers don’t enforce federal immigration laws. Rather, he said, officers seek to identify those they’ve taken into custody.
“We do work with our federal partners when we believe that there is someone who needs to be identified who is not an American citizen,” he said.
“We don’t do immigration, we don’t enforce the laws. We aren’t complicit in what Border [Patrol] or what ICE does with persons that they take into custody.”
Cops question immigration status
According to the department’s “immigration violations” policy, officers may contact federal immigration authorities if a person admits they entered the country illegally, if they suspect their immigration documents are forged, or “other factors based upon training and experience.” The policy states that a person speaking a different language “may be considered” suspicious but “should not be the sole factor in establishing reasonable suspicion.”
In practice, arrest reports show officers attempting to determine a person’s citizenship status.
In August, for example, Officer James Empfield was working an off-duty detail at Walmart when an employee stopped two men suspected of shoplifting. Empfield questioned them in the store’s loss prevention office and asked one of them where he was from.
“Venezuela,” the man responded.
When Empfield then asked the man if he was legally present in the country, the man replied that he had entered “as a refugee.”
Empfield then called Border Patrol, according to his incident report. Both that agency and ICE arrived at the scene and took custody of the man.
The Walmart in Cheektowaga. Photo by Adam Smith-Perez.
In November, Officer Mark Enders was similarly working an off-duty detail at the Walden Avenue Walmart. An employee accused a man of shoplifting, prompting Enders to question him. The man produced a Cuban passport and said he’d been living in the country for three years. That prompted a call to Border Patrol, who came to take custody of the man
Cheektowaga police assist federal agents in other ways, too, as in the case of Mario-Marcello Bosquetubon.
In February, he was the passenger in a car that Cheektowaga police pulled over for traffic violations. The driver, 20-year-old Wuedison Myancela-Loja, was arrested on charges of drunk driving and a slew of other offenses. He was handed over to Border Patrol, detained by ICE in Batavia and later deported to Ecuador.
Cheektowaga police drove Bosquetubon home to a house on William Street where he and other migrants lived. They all worked for the owner of the home, Cesar Lema, as roofing and home repair employees.
Five months later, in late July, ICE arrived one morning as Bosquetubon and seven others were loading up a work truck and preparing to leave for a job. The workers ran. Agents deployed tear gas as they chased, beat and arrested the men, Bosquetubon said. They’d come for one man, but ended up arresting all eight. Everyone, including Bosquetubon, was later deported.
“I worked up there three years until they took me,” Bosquetubon told Investigative Post from Ecuador. “I never did anything wrong. I was only there to work, to get my family ahead.”
Cheektowaga police were on scene that morning to assist, Lema and Bosquetubon told Investigative Post.
Schmidt, the department’s spokesperson, said the officers who drove Bosquetubon home in February would have been prohibited from sharing the address with federal authorities. But he said the police department often responds to requests for assistance from outside agencies, including ICE and Border Patrol. Schmidt said he couldn’t locate a specific report affirming Cheektowaga police were on scene but said it was “very possible” that officers were there on standby “for safety.”
Lema, the contractor who owns the house and is a visa holder, decried the cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities. Last year, he said, “was quiet.” If police stopped him or one of his workers, they would issue a ticket and let them go. This year, however, “they say wait about 15 minutes and then immigration arrives.”
“It’s unfair,” he said. “It is very painful for all the people who are undocumented. Even those with documents are carrying them just because they have a brown or dark appearance.”
Town cops, sheriff deputies also cooperating
Niagara County agencies are also cooperating with ICE and Border Patrol. A review of federal court records turned up four cases — two in Lewiston and two in North Tonawanda — where police called Border Patrol to intervene in a case. Three men have been deported as a result. A fourth faces that prospect.
Then there’s the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office, which signed an agreement in May to hold ICE detainees at the Lockport jail. Since May, an average of five to 10 women have been held as immigration detainees per day, Sheriff Michael Filicetti said. Data compiled by a local researcher found that the jail has held 50 immigration detainees over the past month.
The agency earns $148 per detainee per day under the agreement.
The Niagara County Jail in Lockport. Photo via the Niagara Gazette.
Deputies are also training to serve warrants on behalf of ICE, according to Filicetti.
In an interview, Filicetti said his deputies contact Border Patrol when they suspect a subject may be in the country illegally. Speaking Spanish isn’t the sole reason they may contact federal authorities, he said, but it can be a contributing factor.
“If you start talking to somebody, and they’re very evasive with their answers about what’s going on … they’re unable to provide identification, they don’t speak the language … you start piecing things together,” he said.
In other cases, a migrant is sometimes charged with reentering the country illegally — a criminal offense. But local police didn’t know that when they first stopped them.
On April 15, for example, Amherst police officers conducted a traffic stop around 8:30 a.m. The officers detained two men and called Border Patrol for assistance. Fifteen minutes later, Border Patrol agents questioned the men about their legal status, ultimately detaining one of them. The man was later ordered deported.
Investigative Post found three criminal complaints showing Erie County Sheriff’s deputies detained a person before handing them over to federal authorities. Horvatits, department spokesperson, said the actual count is greater. Deputies are “in contact” with Border Patrol “dozens” of times a year, he said, and so far in 2025 have handed over about a dozen migrants to federal custody.
Horvatits said the agency does not keep statistics on how many times that kind of transfer occurs and declined a request for an interview.
In other cases, local police collaborate with immigration agents more actively.
In April, for example, plainclothes Border Patrol agents were staking out a roofing crew driving a work truck in the Town of Tonawanda. The agents ran the truck’s plates and determined the registration had expired seven months prior. They called Tonawanda police and asked them to conduct a traffic stop. The officers complied and issued the driver a ticket.
According to the criminal complaint, Border Patrol then arrived on scene and quizzed the occupants of the truck on their citizenship status. One man had been previously deported twice and was arrested. He was later ordered deported for a third time.
Tonawanda Police Chief James Stauffiger did not return calls seeking comment. But Town Supervisor Joseph Emminger said the town’s police are not cooperating with immigration agents unless presented with a warrant.
“We’re not doing it just because ICE or Border Patrol has asked us to help them. We’re not doing that,” he said. “If we have a court order saying we got to do something, then we do it.”
Emminger did not respond to additional questions about the April case.
This Friday, Investigative Post interviews Mayor-elect Sean Ryan at the Burchfield Penney Art Center at 7 p.m. Be there!
